Jun | 16 | 2006

Link lovin’: Descriptive link text

Posted by Professor as Blog Tutorial, Linking, Tips, Writing

chain, links

Have you ever written or read something like:

Check this out.

Do you see such things often? What do you feel when you see them? Are you compelled to click the link? Or do you ignore the link because you are thinking that it might give you a link to a dubious site or blog?

Think about it. The link text is so vague that you do not have a clue about it. Sometimes though it comes after so much text so the preceding paragraphs and/or sentences would have explained what that is. However, for those who are just scanning on the page, they would have missed potentially useful information because of the vague link text.

Let us change the link text into something like this:

Let’s have a quick Cantonese tutorial.

Wasn’t that more helpful than the previous one?

Link text should indicate the context. It should give the reader a hint, at the very least, of what the link is all about. If your link texts are so vague, it could be ignored all together. Sometimes people would not bother to check what it is all about if they still have to click before finding out. It is good to give an idea as to how everything in your blog entry is tied up together and links are included.

In the earlier link text example, it was very vague, as “this” is so generic. Meanwhile, in the other example, it not only says that it would direct you to a page containing a quick tutorial in learning a new language, which is Cantonese. It also tells you know what topic to expect.

In search engine optimization, being specific in link texts also help. Again, there is the matter of context as shown through keywords.

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